.The death on May 8 at age 98 of Robert Douglas Stuart Jr. — longtime chief executive of the Quaker Oats company — marked the demise of one who played a pivotal role in preserving the American republic in opposition to the globalist forces that would dissolve U.S. sovereignty in a so-called New World Order. Although known as an heir to the famous cereal empire, which he later expanded with the acquisition of the Fisher-Price toy brand, and for having served from 1984 to 1989 as U.S. ambassador to Norway, Stuart’s real claim to fame, his badge of honor — noted mostly in the history books — was having been the founder as a student at Yale in 1940 of the legendary America First Committee (AFC). Attracting the support of tens of millions of Americans during its brief existence, the AFC was the driving force behind widespread popular opposition to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s mad (albeit ultimately successful) push to force the United States into the war then raging in Europe. Stuart himself was so committed to the cause that he took a leave of absence from his academic studies to serve as the national director of the AFC, which soon had affiliates all across the United States.Among the Yale students who joined Stuart in opposing U.S. intervention in Europe were such future big names as President Gerald Ford, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and Peace Corps director R. Sargent Shriver Jr. Other young supporters of the growing America First movement included JFK. Although a host of well-known political figures — liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican alike — along with a vast array of respected icons from various circles publicly aligned with the AFC — with big name former Gen. Robert Wood serving as national chairman — the AFC became most closely associated with the efforts of its best-known supporter, beloved aviator Charles Lindbergh. “Lucky Lindy” energetically barnstormed the country, addressing massive rallies of grassroots Americans who rejected FDR’s drive to war. On one memorable occasion Lindbergh incurred the wrath of the media when he said: “The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.”In the end, in the words of AFC’s Wood, the warmongers managed to get the U.S. involved in the war in Europe through “the back door” — by instigating conflict with Japan, allied with Germany — and the AFC closed its doors in the name of national unity. For his own part, AFC founder Stuart enlisted in the U.S. Army and saw action in Europe, but the concept behind an America First movement lived on, well after World War II came to a close. Many AFC leaders opposed what they saw as the madness of the emerging Cold War and the rise of senseless U.S. military intervention around the globe. Today, voices such as AFP and historical magazines such as THE BARNES REVIEW — commemorating Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes, one of the AFC’s most energetic and prominent supporters — preserve the legacy of what young Stuart set in motion nearly 75 years ago.